Thursday, November 21, 2013

IPPEKIRO ~









Kamiuma 
(February 1942 ~ March 1944)





Forsythia blooming

sun shining

the mind of the ancient







Things are refreshingly cool

a chicken

and his face









A cicada hole

around there

the fragrant color of earth








So full of

white clouds

I catch a grasshopper









I have potatoes to eat

I see a bamboo grove

from where I sit








I long for my home

my home

ice on a harvested field









It's May

the sun and a grove of young pines

are leaning









It's midwinter

there are many mountains

there is one lake









A summer-like mind

this placid water

reminds me of my home country









Living in a field

I bury the fire

deep in a brazier









I talk with a child

who hasn't caught

a single cicada yet








Pee-cho pee-cho

sings a bird

blue mountain comes near










        . . . . remembering Basho


A vast grassland

Basho comes all alone

after a wintry blast 









I look upon the surface

of one stone

spring light in a bamboo grove











By the fireside tonight

I think of ocean tide ebbing

on a moonlit night











Burning the fallen leaves

I feel infinitude

behind me










A rooster and I

walk

over the frozen earth











I shall respond

to the mountain form shone

by the winter sun












My ears being frost-bitten

the sky is vast

these days













Being with the bare trees

I sleep at night

facing this direction

















Ippekiro Nakatsuka (1887 ~ 1946)
____________________________

from Cape Jasmine and Pomegranates
(the free-meter haiku of Ippekiro)
translated by Soichi Furuta
Mushinsha / Grossman 1974



http://www.big.or.jp/~loupe/links/ehisto/eippekiro.shtml